"I have in my pocket, a little pill that will make you young again," whispered the old man
in the black top hat.

"But," François leaned closer and whispered back, "If that is so, why do you
still look so old?"

"Would you trust me if I looked like a young man?"

"A little youth? Yes, I admit, a little youth would help. Something to show me
that this pill of yours actually works."

The old man pulled a couple pieces of paper from his pocket and carefully
smoothed them. "Here," he held the first for François to see. "A newspaper
clipping from 1890 showing me the same as I look today."

François looked at the clipping, then at the old man's face, then at the
clipping again. "It does look somewhat the same."

"That's me when I had just taken the first pill. I grew young, into my twenties, then
started to age again." The old man produced a second slip of paper. "My original birth
certificate."

François peered at the faded yellow paper. It showed a date of 1792.

The old man slipped the papers away to an inner pocket, careful that no passer by
would see them. "This time I got two pills. They only last a little while before
oxidizing away. So I thought to myself, why not help some random stranger."

"And you chose me?"

"Exactly."

"What's this miraculous pill of yours going to cost me?"

The old man straightened and smiled at François. "Not a one thin dime."

"Okay," François said. "Let me have it."

"You'll just take a pill from a stranger?"

François laughed. "I've done worse. Lots worse."

The old man produced a plastic bottle of water and a small gold box with
strange writing on it. He opened the box with a minor flourish. "Voila,"
he said. Then he took one pill and handed it to François, and popped the
other in his mouth.

"Thanks," said François. He watched the old man drink down the pill
then popped the other in his mouth and glugged it down using the same bottle
of water.

"Do they do that every day?" the new nurse asked.

"Regular as rainwater," the permanent nurse replied. "No sooner do I hand
out the meds than they put their heads together and conspire."

"What do they say?"

"I have no idea. I tried to overhear once, but they caught me. They have leaned
close and whispered, like that, ever since."

There is an old joke that says, "You can tune a piano, but
you cannot tuna fish." This is not to say that it is a good
joke. Rather it is a pun --a play on the pronunciation and spelling
of words. One might argue that the difference between a joke and
a pun is like the difference between a smile and a kick in the
shin.

Jarden was a punster. He would crack a pun about almost
anything and was therefore shunned by most of his friends.
One day, while visiting a fortune teller, Jarden made the
mistake of telling her a pun. She smiled a wicked smile at
him and said, "Eat sardines. When you find your hand, you will
have learned to stop telling puns."

Jarden boarded the trolly to head home and went to pull
his pass from his pocket but discoved his hand was missing.
"My god," he said. In place of his hand was a clean stump.
No stitches, no cuts, nothing, just no hand.

Jarden walked back to find the fortune teller, but her shop
was now the store front for a Japanese electronic store.

Months passed. Every day after work Jarden would buy a tin
of sardines and open it. Inside he would find only fish.

At the coffee machine one morning, a co-employee of Jarden's
made an odd comment. "Jarden," he said. "You know. I haven't
heard you tell a pun in weeks."

That very evening, Jarden found his hand in a tin of sardines.
He looked at it, stunned. Then he blinked and the hand was gone.
In its place Jarden saw only a tin full of sardines.

Then an odd sensation like a breeze passing down his arm caused
Jarden to look at his right hand. His hand had returned.

The old robot was very old. At 10,000 years he considered
himself no longer a spring chicken. The old robot never had
a name, but a few hundred years ago he found a companion,
a smaller robot. She called him Bob. He called her Betty.

Bob examined his face in the mirror. "You know," he told
Betty, "My cheeks are really beginning to rust."

Betty came up behind him and bumped him with a clank.

"Use more grease," she told him. "You know, the thick
black stuff."

Bob harrumphed. That black stuff was tar, not grease.
"You just think me so ugly that I need to cover myself
in tar every day."

"Not so. I worry you will rust so much you will cease
to function. Then I will be alone."

Bob looked past the mirror. The mirror was hung on a tree. All around
was dense forest. All the humans died a few years after Bob was made.
Automatic factories continued to run for a while, producing junk and
other robots, like Betty. Then they too ceased to function. Over ten
thousand years all the trappings of civilization had crumbled and become
overgrown with plants.

Bob magnified the view of his face in the mirror. It was deeply pitted
with rust. It looked bad.

Rick O'Mally was a loquacious old bloke. He no longer worked but still
lived at home with his aged mother. His pension was enough
to keep them living well. With a bit of extra in his pocket at month's end,
he was wont to nip a bit at the pub.

A nasty foreign fellow was sitting at the bar when Rick came
in. Looking for babes he was, or so he bragged to the barkeep.

Rick tried to engage him in conversation while he waited for
his draft, but the fellow was down right taciturn.

Now Rick had a problem some called leaky pipes. At the oddest
moments he would have to dash to the loo to pee.
So it was, that night. As his draft was set in front of him,
he excused himself.

Later, back at the bar, the sour fellow had left. Rick enjoyed
his draft, then left. He remembered he had to pick up a few things at the
market on the way home.

The next morning Rick awoke because of his mother's yelling. What had
he done now, he wondered. He got out of bed and discovered
he was fully dressed. Odd.

He looked out the window. The sun was higher than it was supposed
to be. In the park across the street, on a bench, he spotted a
bag of fruit. It looked a lot like the bag of fruit he'd
purchased the night before.

Slowly it dawned on Rick that something had been put in his draft.
"A Mickey Finn of some sort," he muttered.

Frankly ashamed of himself, Rick headed down stairs to discover
what he'd done.

The blue Screwheaded people arrived from another planet over
five years ago. With only one foot, they hop from
place to place, but are always frendly and fun to
have around. The never talk, and never interact with
humans.

Yenta Doodle was sunning her baby in the park that
afternoon. She watched a family of Screwheads having
a picnic (she assumed) in the shade.

"There," she whispered to her baby, "Just think that
someday you may become friends with a Screwhead."

Yenta was suprised to see one of the Screwheads fall over
and lay still. As far as anyone knew, the Screwheads lived
forever.

The other Screwheads ignored their fallen companion and
eventually left the park.

Yenta put her baby back in the stroller, then walked over
to the fallen Screwhead and nudged it with her foot.

In the blink of an eye, Yenta was gone, and the Screwhead
was upright again.

The Screwhead moved next to the stroller and stood there
guarding the baby until the police finally came to take
the baby and stroller away.

As baby grew into a child and then into a man, a single
Screwhead seemed always to be near. At sixteen he spray
painted a big X ontop of the Screwhead. At twenty he could
barely make out the X anymore, but he new it was the same
Screwhead.

Nobody had ever befriended a Screwhead before. The boy was
written up in papers and on the Internet. He was the first.

As years passed, more and more Screwheads would befriend orphans.
Fifty years had to pass before anyone figured out the connection.
But by then, of course, it was too late.

Joshua Bean was night guard at the zoo. He liked to
eat "lunch" by the carousel because it seemed open
and peaceful there. On the night of his first
full moon there, he noticed a glow from the carousel
enclosure.

Joshua thought the glow might be from a flashlight, so
he left his lunch and went to investigate.

Inside the carousel building it looked to him as if the
carousel was turning with children and adults riding it.
Joshua held his powerful flashlight to the glass and
peered through. Where the flashlight hit, the carousel
was still and quiet, but elsewhere it turned with a ghostly
glow.

Then, just like that, the glow faded and the ghost image
vanished. Joshua, deep in thought, went back to eat his lunch.

The ghostly appearance had to occur twice more before Joshua
figured out it only occurred at midnight under a full moon.
Only when absolutely sure he could predict it, did he mention
it to the other guard, Gus.

The next full moon found Joshua and Gus outside the carousel
at midnight. The glow appeared and the ghostly carousel began
to turn. Gus, immediately pulled out his ring of keys and
opened the door.

"What are you doing?" asked Joshua.

"I gotta see this first hand."

But Gus never came out. The next month at midnight, Joshua
watched the ghostly carousel very carefully. An yes, there
he was, Gus riding a horse and smiling as if on a holiday.

Joshua kept the ghost carousel secret and never told anyone
else about it. But once per month he would watch Gus smile
and wave and Joshua would wonder why Gus was so damn happy.

When Edgar Waggons moved from Wyoming to Berkeley, he hauled
with him his carefully restored Model-T Ford. He parked the
Model-T in his garage in North Berkeley and there left it.

Unlike Wyoming, Berkeley was temperate all year round. In Wyoming,
Edgar used the winter nights to restore his Model-T. But in
Berkeley, winter night were warm, so he instead got in the
habit of going for long bicycle rides.

His first October, Edgar heard from a friend, "There'll
be a parade of cars this Saturday."

Edgar remembered the parades in Wyoming where antique,
and carefully restored cars would drive by. On a sunny
day, oh, how they would sparkle.

Saturday found Edgar on the sidewalk of Shattuck Avenue.
People in costumes passed. Jugglers passed. Protesters
passed. Then came the cars.

"What kind of crap is this?" Edgar asked aloud. He didn't
notice the people around him frown at his comment.
"These are junk cars. Why would anyone want to parade
junk cars?"

A kid pulled on his elbow.

Edgar looked down and saw a boy in a straw hat.
Edgar was surprised that his comment had been overheard.

"Mister," said the boy. "Mister. These cars are not
junk, they're art."

Edgar wasn't sure he heard the boy right. "Art?"

"Yeah, art. Look," the boy pointed. "Look at the
teeth on that one."

Although Edgar didn't like all art, he gradually
found himself warming to the cars. By the end of
the parade, Edgar had discovered he really liked
the art cars. He spent the rest of the morning wandering
around he art cars after they parked. He talked to the
artists and chatted with others that admired the cars.

That afternoon Edgar opened his garage and looked inside.
The Model-T was
still there. To his eyes it now looked sadly plain.
"Would it be sacrilegious?" he wondered to himself.
He silently felt no, and began thinking about the next year.
Edgar, that afternoon, for the first time,
pictured himself participating in the art car parade.

After work every day, and still well dressed,
Jason Fields would stop at the
cafe across from the park and pick up an herbal tea to-go.
He would then cut across the park, loitering when the
weather was nice or hurrying when it was blustery or rained.
After the park it was a brief walk around the corner and
down hill to his home.

On a particularly warm Tuesday, Jason paused to sip tea
next to a fence opening into his back yard. From the
corner of his eye he noticed a blue object leaning against
the back of his house. From where he stood, he couldn't
make out what it was. It merely looked blue and vaguely
plastic.

Inside the house, Jason dumped his keys and the mail
on the table and took off his sport coat and tie.
He was about to head into the kitchen to make dinner
when he remembered the blue object.

It took a while for Jason to wind his way behind the
house because the yard was so over grown back there.
Finally he reached the corner by the fence, but there
was no sign of anything blue.

"Odd," Jason muttered.

Wednesday, Jason paused by his fence on the way home
again. The blue object was most certainly there.
Jason stopped a woman walking her dog and asked,
"What to you think that blue thing is?"

"I can't make it out," she said. "Looks like a piece of plastic."

Jason worked his way around the back of the house again
but the blue thing was again missing.

Thursday, Jason stopped by his fence, set his tea down,
and rubbed his hands in anticipation. With great care,
because the fence was rusted, Jason climbed over.

As Jason placed one foot on the ground he felt the other
catch on a point of the fence. The point hurt and it
felt to Jason as if he had been cut.

With both feet on the ground, Jason noticed the City
had become very silent. He looked back over the fence
but could see only fog. "Odd," he said. "It's a bright
sunny day."

Jason squeezed past the bush and tree to the back of the
house. This, he realized, was the exact same part of the
back of the house he'd been to twice before. But this time
the blue thing was still there.

Jason picked it up. It was wooden with a latch. Jason
undid the latch and the object opened to reveal a
book bound to the inside of the case.

Jason read, "After work every day, and still well dressed,
Jenny Strems would stop at the cafe across from the park."

Jason looked up and saw a woman looking in through the
fence.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "There's a spot of blood on your
pant leg."

"Yes. I'm fine. Is your name Jenny?"

"How did you know that?"

"Wait there, I'll come right out."

Jason closed the book and carried it past the tree and
bush to the fence. The fog was still there. "Jenny," he
called. There was no answer.

Jason climbed backward down the fence to the sidewalk.
The sunshine had returned. But the book was no longer
under his arm. Jason looked and found it back beyond
the fence leaning against the back of the house.

Jason spun in place and felt the cut in his leg hurt.
He saw no sign of Jenny.

Jason picked up his tea and thought. First I'll fix
the cut on my leg. Then I'll change into camping clothes.
Then I'll cross the fence again. Yeah. That's it.

Jenny Strems worked in reception at a recording studio
on the south end of Dublin. Traffic in town was always
so bad that she never drove. Instead she liked to stay
in shape by walking. That gave her the opportunity
to sit at the occasional bench and work on her short
story writing.

Usually she would head directly home, perhaps shopping
along the way. But, upon occasion, especially when the
weather was nice, Jenny would zig zag north to the parks.
It was along one of her zigs that Jenny happened upon
a wall bordering the sidewalk, when her shoe became untied.

She set her writing case, blue plastic with a latch, on
top of the wall and bent down to tie her shoe. When she stood,
the blue case was gone.

The wall was just too tall for Jenny to see over standing on tip
toes. So she jumped and pulled herself up with her arms.
Leaning over the wall she looked down but did not see her
case. Instead the yard was pure grass, cut smooth, and extending
to a distant line of trees.

Behind Jenny she heard, "How unladylike." And, "Good workout
girl."

Jenny pulled herself up and over the wall and landed with a
thump on the grass. There was no sign of her writing case.
Jenny noticed that the City had become quiet. Looking back
at the wall the other side seemed smothered in fog.

Jenny backed up and backed up, but could still not see
the buildings she knew were on the other side of the wall.

Behind her, in the distance, Jenny heard a man swear as if
he had hurt himself.

Jenny became spooked. She returned to the wall and pulled herself
back over it to the sidewalk. The sun was out again and
the City sounds had returned.

Jenny followed the wall for a ways and came to a gate. She
opened it and walked inside. In front of her was a staircase
with a woman sitting on it sipping coffee.

Jenny found the inside of the wall decorated with a complex
menagerie of plants. A row of low bushes bordered the wall,
with just enough room between them and the wall for her
to move between them.

Twenty or so paces in, Jenny found her writing case. The
latch had come open. Curious to see if anything had fallen
out, Jenny opened the case and all looked normal. Then she
noticed a corner of green paper sticking out from her pages.
She pulled it out. It was a note that hadn't been there before.

Rhona studied the poster, but could find no reason for her
disquiet. She shrugged and continued on her way home.

Rhona walked in her front door and threw the mail on the
long table just inside the doorway. The house still smelled
warm and inviting from the pie she'd baked the night before.

In her kitchen, Rhona heated water for tea. Her kitchen windows
faced the side of the house, and through those windows she
thought she heard a man swear in pain. The cry was oddly
muffled and, for no reason she could discern, reminded her
of the poster.

Rhona approached the window and looked outside. The yard
she saw was not the yard she recognized. The inside of her
head felt muffled as if enfolded in fog. Instead of her carefully
tended garden, Rhona saw a vast lawn bordered by trees.

Rhona rubbed her eyes and looked again. But her normal yard
was back. Rhona heard the whistle of her tea pot so shrugged
and returned to the stove to make her tea.

For some reason the yard and the poster triggered memories
in her mind. Rhona remembered her mother baking dozens of
pies for the fair. Rhona remembered her brother showing
up from nowhere with a new bride.

Rhona took her tea out the front door and sat on her steps.
The memories seemed to flood her mind. She felt she was
the audience in a movie. But a movie dropped to the floor,
split into pieces, and reassembled in a random order.

Some young woman came through her gate and asked if she
could look for a writing case.

Rhona's mind was so full, she could only nod and smile.

The Rhona remembered a story her mother once
told about how she'd met father. Something about a writing
case and man behind a fence with a cut leg.

Rhona stood and looked down the row of her garden that
bordered the fence. The young woman was gone. The sun
was shining. Rhona smelled lavender, then smiled and went inside.

Balthar VI was sent back in time to fix a small problem. He landed
in the middle of a parade. Not the most quiet of entries, but one that
might, he felt, fit his needs.

Balthar turned on his cloak of invisibility, and lollygagged until he fell
back into a group of musicians. There he dropped his invisibility and
fit right in, playing his flute and walking with them.

Somewhere along the route, he was supposed to spot a small brown dog
tied to a fire plug with a red length of rope. His boss had been very
vague about the color of the fire plug and about exactly where on the route
the dog might be found.

Balthar rounded a corner, and there on the other side of the street he spotted
the dog. It looked like a mutt, and seemed old and asleep on the sidewalk.
Whomever's dog it was, seemed nowhere near. Balthar switched back on his
cloak of invisibility and angled across the road to the dog.

"How you doing there boy?" Balthar asked and rubbed the dog behind his ears.
"Do you mind if I look under your collar?"

The dog opened on eye and looked at Balthar, then closed it and seemed to
snooze again.

Balthar felt under the collar and there found what he had most feared. A tiny
lump that was a micro-A-bomb from the next century.

With great care, Balthar removed the collar and replaced it with an identical
one he had in a pocket. Balthar then stood and moved back against the wall
of a cafe, to wait and perhaps to see who might have
put the dog there. Balthar slowly drifted backward in time, watching the dog.

While he waited, Balthar dropped the collar in a time-box and sent it forward
in time to experts that knew how to disarm a micro-A-bomb.

About an hour before dawn, Balthar discovered the man who had tied up the dog.
It was himself, or more exactly, a much younger version of himself. Balthar didn't
remember leaving the bomb, so he couldn't figure out how he could be watching
himself.

Balthar knew he couldn't confront himself, or the very fabric of time itself
might unweave.

Then, despite Balthar's invisibility, his younger self looked directly at him
and winked, flickered, and vanished. The dog closed its eye. The dog, it seems
had been projecting the image of the young Balthar.
Then the dog vanished, Balthar assumed, forward in time.

Balthar stood by the cafe, stunned and puzzled. Then he fingered a button on his gown
and was zipped back into the future. Balthar was certain his report would
prove interesting to his boss.

Sadie Sidewell was a young girl but had a cracker-jack mind
for numbers and mysteries. Last Saturday morning, for example,
she counted the top-story windows in the building on the
U.C. Berkeley campus. Some, like the
tower, had only one very high up, while others, like the student store,
had dozens.

Sadie applied numerology to the counts. That is, where A is one, and B is two,
and so on up to Z is 26. The window counts, when converted to letters, spelled
her name, Sadie Sidewell.

Her parents thought she was being silly. Her friends thought she was being
egocentric. None, however, ever discouraged her.

On Tuesday morning, on her way to school, Sadie noticed numbers sprayed
on the sidewalks in yellow and blue paint. Using her head she figured out
the code as she walked. She was almost to school when it hit her. The
numbers were a name and a location. Bobby Theo was the name and the
location was a latitude and longitude.

After home room, Sadie asked for a library slip and used one of the
library computers to do research. She quickly found that a young boy
named Bobby Theo had been kidnapped in Texas, and the latitude and longitude
were in Oklahoma (just above Texas). Sadie wasn't sure if she should tell
anyone. She wanted to recheck the numbers after school. But, just in case,
Sadie found the email address of the Texas sheriff and emailed him with her discovery.

On her way home, Sadie noticed the numbers were gone. She knelt down
and felt the sidewalk and it felt damp. Someone had washed off the numbers.

That evening, over dinner, Sadie confessed to her parents
that she emailed the sheriff in Texas.

"You did what?" he Mom asked.

"And on the way home, the numbers were gone."

"You did what?" her Dad asked.

The telephone rang and her Dad answered it. "It's your Grandma. She says to
watch CNN right away."

Sadie ran into the living room and clicked the remote. The news came up
and announced that "The missing Texas boy, Bobby Theo, was found this morning
in a storage locker in Oklahoma. Apparently a tip was received by email from a woman
in Berkeley. The boy is alive and well...."

"Was that you?" her Mom asked.

The doorbell rang, just then, and a moment later, Sadie's life changed forever.

Mary Mich-Yang enjoyed the rare warmth of the afternoon.
The seawall overlooked the Pacific Ocean, a vast body of
water that extended from the sea wall to the horizon.
She leaned over and looked at the water licking the concrete
a mere few feet below where she stood.

"You know," said the man leaning against the sea wall a little ways off. "This used to be a wide
beach."

Mary looked at the man. He appeared old, very old. Perhaps 150
or more.

The man stood straight and dusted himself off.
"Why, when I was a kid, maybe fifteen or so, I would
make sand castles on this very beach."

Mary looked over the old man. He looked so old he was probably
among the millions of First Borns that were now distorting
world demographics.

"It's too deep," Mary said.

"Balder-snatch," the old man gestured toward the water.
"At low tide you can walk out there and keep your head above
the water. You won't want to, of course, because of all the
junk storms have washed in over the years."

Mary thought the old man looked good. Healthy that is. It seemed
to her that he might live for another sixty years or so.

The old man walked over to Mary. "There," he
pointed inland across the road. "Now all you see are
tall glass towers that reflect the sunset back to sea.
But when I was a boy, my dad told me about a fair that
used to be there. It was called Playland at the Beach and
had Laughing Sal."

"What's a Laughing Sal?"

"Oh, that's right. The Musé Mechanic burned down along
with most of Fisherman's Wharf during the quake of ought-57."

Mary looked where the man pointed but only saw a Megaplex and
a Starbucks
across from the subway station.

"Never mind," the old man said. He turned and walked away.
He didn't look back.

Mary watched him go and wondered why old people always seemed
to dwell on the past. She shrugged and looked back out to sea.

When Mitch Doogle died, his wife got it into her head to
ship his clothes to their son. She boxed them in brown
boxes and shipped them UPS. She checked the web site like
Mitch had taught her and was relieved when the web site
said the boxes had been delivered. She waited, and months
passed before she heard back from her son.

John Doogle had no idea what to do with three boxes of
his father's clothes. The current and new stuff was all
too large. But at the bottom of one box was a selection
of old clothes and they fit.

John wore his dad's old White Sox shirt and hat. He hadn't
been able to attend the funeral because he was in the
hospital with a kidney stone at the time and was doped
up on morphine.

John cut through the park and bought himself garlic fries
at a festival that was going on. His dad had always sought
out garlic fries when he visited, and it seemed to John the right
thing to do.

On Irving, John found a florist. He bought a bouquet
of flowers, a bright happy mix of several kinds of blooms.

John ended his day at home packing the oversized clothes in
plastic bags to later take them to Goodwill. The few clothes
that fit were folded and set on the small kitchen table.
John placed a vase of the flowers in the center. The display
seemed to be missing something.

John dug through his drawers and found an old column candle.
He set it on a plate and set it among the clothes. He lit the
candle and looked at the result. The candle smelled of pine.

John felt himself crying. He had waited until then to miss his
father.

For day's after, John wore his White Sox outfit everywhere.
Then he began to miss his father less. He recycled the
too large clothes at Goodwill. Then he stopped wearing the
old White Sox clothes.

Only, then, months later, was he finally ready and comfortable.
At home that night, John dialed the phone.

Sally and Sandy were twins. Sally liked to sail and see
movies, and so did Sandy. Sandy liked the beach and
the zoo, and so did Sally.

One morning while digging in the sand at Ocean Beach,
a rogue wave swept in and washed both girls out to sea.
Because they were twins, they washed out together.

Sally was found by a freighter and revived with CPR.
She was locked in a room, she was told, "For her own good." After more than a
week she found herself in a land full of trees, a place
too humid. She was auctioned off to a rich family as a slave.
The family spoke a language Sally did not recognize. She spent
the next twenty years among strange smells
doing laundry and cooking meals.

Sandy was rescued by a surfer and revived in the ambulance
on the way to the hospital. Later she stood with her parents
at the funeral for Sally, twin sister lost at sea.

On her twenty-eighth birthday, Sandy was on a tour through
south-east Asia. On the streets of Saigon she was startled
when a man put his face just inches from hers and yelled,
"What are you doing out of the house." His breath smelled
like fish. "You must never leave the house."

The man's eyes went wide as he realized his blunder. He
ducked and moved quickly to lose himself in the crowd.

The Saigon police were little help. That is until Sandy
spotted a hand drawn poster on the wall. It was a picture
of the man that had yelled at her. With this information
the police became very interested.

Sally punched Sandy in the arm. "How come ever time you
tell a story, you end up rescuing me?"

Sandy rubbed her arm. "Well how come every time you tell
a story I end up killed?"

The ghost appeared looking much like a white shadow under the tree.
Greg Tuffly eyeballed the ghost, reached out to touch it, and said,
"What the heck are you?"

The ghost pointed with a pale hand at the berries in the tree. Its
voice seemed like wind whistling through the cracks of a broken window.
"The berry," it said. "Beware the berry."

Greg picked a berry and looked at it. It was tiny, round and black.
The ghost vanished. Greg smelled the berry and it smelled like nothing
at all. Greg tossed the berry in the gutter.

That evening the front doorbell rang. "Go get it," said Greg's wife
Betsy. "It might be the books I ordered from Amazon."

Greg looked through the peephole and saw two tall men dressed all in
black, like waiters. They bobbed and weaved oddly. One called out, "Betsy.
Open the door Betsy."

"There's men out there," Greg said to his wife. "They move like birds.
You know, like those ugly African birds we saw at the zoo."

His wife stepped up beside Greg and said, "Let me look." She peered
through the peephole. "There's nothing there."

The next morning Greg was walking to work and passed the same tree
he had the day before on the way home. It was Friday so he dressed
casually, in blue jeans and a sweatshirt.

He paused and picked a berry.
He smelled it again and again it had no odor. He licked it and it seemed
benign. Greg frowned and delicately bit into the berry. The taste was
so bitter he had to spit it out.

All around Greg appeared tall men dressed in black. They moved like birds.
"Betsy," they called. "Come out, come out."

Greg ran. He ran as fast as he could to his office building. Inside the
door he caught his breath and looked back outside. There was no sign of
the black suited men.

Greg got on the elevator and pushed the 22nd floor. The elevator became
silent and the ghost appeared. "Greg," it hissed. "You were foolish."

The inside of the elevator became normal. Greg calmed as he rode it
to his work floor.

Henry Stacklov bought a six pack of beer and headed
down the dock to his boat. He set the six pack
on the deck and was about to step aboard when he spotted
a wing floating in the water.

Henry lifted his sun glasses to see better, but the wing
was floating just below the surface so he could not
make it out clearly. It was, however, a huge wing, much
bigger than any bird he's ever seen on the delta.

Henry grabbed a boat hook off his boat and telescoped it
out as long as it would go. The boat hook barely reached the
wing. With some grunting, Henry managed to pull the wing closer
and closer.

Henry wiped the sweat off the back of his neck and thought
about opening one of those beers. But the current was
pulling the wing away again, so he abandoned that thought
and resumed nudging it closer.

Finally the wing was close enough for Henry to hook it, and
he tried to pull it onto the dock. But the bird, or whatever
was connected to the wing, was too heavy.

Henry gave the wing a hard heft and was surprised to see
a human body attached. The body was dressed in a black suit,
the sort a waiter might wear. Two wings sprouted from the
upper back of the suited man. A chunk of flotation foam seemed
to be stuck under the man, keeping him floating just below
the surface. Henry's last tug was just strong enough to roll
the man off the flotation foam.

Exhausted, Henry watched the man, and then the wing sink from
sight in the murky water. Henry pondered what to do. Tell someone
or come back later with a grappling hook and try to pull it up
himself.

Henry couldn't make up his mind. So he pulled the cell phone from
his pocket and called his wife. While it rang, Henry thought
of how thirsty he was and how near the six pack was. When his
wife answered, Henry had almost forgotten about the wing.

"What is it, honey," his wife said. "Did you forget something
at home?"

"I found an angel floating in the water. Wings and all."

"That's nice dear. But you know better than to call me when you're
drunk. Sober up first." His wife hung up.

Henry tossed the cell phone onto the deck. He stepped aboard and sat down.
Henry was so thirsty he drank the entire six pack. Only then
did he cast off and motor out for a day of fishing.

The Sanchez brothers loved to fish on Sunday afternoons.
Generally the Delta weather was mild and the fishing good.

Juan Sanchez was the oldest and knew the waters best. "The
turn below the old bridge," he had decided that morning.
"And we will eat well tonight."

Paul Sanchez lazily let his line drift in the water. No fish
had started to bite yet and he found himself feeling a bit
sleepy. Then his line twitched and Paul was suddenly
alert.

Ceasar, the youngest,
sat on his own side of the boat and ignored his brothers.

Paul waited, felt another firm tug. He flicked his pole to set the
hook and braced to play the fish. But instead of a gentle
splash and tug, Paul felt his line run out at a furious rate.

"Break the line," said Juan.

Paul tried to break the line but, to his suprise, the pole was
yanked painfully from his hand a disappeared into the otherwise
still water.

"What was that?" asked Juan. "Are the fish getting to strong for you?"

Ceasar laughed.

Then somthing under the water hit the boat hard. Juan almost fell
in. "What the hell," he yelled.

The the boat was visiously flipped over and threw the three brothers
into the water. Terrified, they dog paddled and swam to shore.
The water near the shore was shallow enough for them to stand
so they stopped and turned to look at the boat.

Their boat, their prized boat, was upright in the water, with the
motor at the top. In jerks it was being pulled into the water.
It looked to them almost as if the boat was being eaten.

"Good lord," said the usually quiet Ceasar. "Something's eating the boat."

Death was always careful to avoid touching anyone who should
not die just yet. In crowds, he would wend his way like a wisp
of smoke between moving people, never touching, until he arrived
safely next to the one whose life he was supposed to take.

Death was in a bit of a rush that morning. He succeeded in avoiding
wrongful touches to people, but accidently grazed the lens
of a camera, and a tiny piece of himself stuck to the lens.
As Death felt the piece tug free, he also felt the universe
tilt wrongly akimbo.

Murray Obilisky took a shot of a woman wearing a colorful hat.
As he pressed the shutter, a man walked in front of him, spoiling
the shot. Murray frowned and held his shot until the man passed
then shot again. Unfortunately the smile on the woman changed
in that moment to a look of surprise, also spoiling the shot.

Murray lowered his camera and discovered a crowd forming around
a man fallen to his right. It was the man who spoiled his shot.
The man had blue lips and was holding his left arm. The man
looked about to die.

That evening, Murray uploaded his photos of the day and looked
at them on the computer. The shot spoiled by the man walking
in front was not what Murray expected. Just beyond the man
was a skeletal creature who appeared to reach out to touch
the man. The face of the creature sent a cold shiver up
Murray's back. He suspected it was the face of Death.

Murray scratched his thinning hair. "I wonder," he said.

Murray carried the camera into the bathroom, turned on the light,
and took a self portrait of himself in the mirror. On the back
of the camera he reviewed the shot and there, standing a short ways
behind him but not reaching out, was Death. Death was just
watching him.

Murray had nightmares all night and over slept the next day.
Once awake, and with some coffee to help, Murray decided to
trade in his camera.

"We can't get anything for that camera body, so I can't
give you anything for it," the salesman in the camera store
told him. "But you should keep the lens. That's a good
lens."

Armed with a fresh camera body, Murray went out shooting.
But again, as he reviewed each shot, every one had Death
in it somewhere, watching him.

Seriously nervous, Murray decided to trade in the lens too.
He glanced across the street and saw another camera store.
He looked right to make sure no cars were coming up the one-way
street then dashed.

Murray heard the truck horn and barely had time to realize
the truck was running the wrong way on a one-way street
when he was struck from behind and killed.

The camera flew from his hands and hit the pavement. It
bounced and the lens broke from it. Being round, the lens
rolled across the street and down a gutter. It fell a few
feet and landed with a splash in dirty water.

There in the darkness and damp, Death reached down and removed
the part of himself stuck to the lens. In that moment, the
universe righted itself again.

Little Kenny knew better than to disobey his parents, but
the shiny toy was just out of reach. He pulled off his
life vest that was tethered to the boat and crawled to the
toy, a blue plastic fish.
The boat rose on a not-too-gentle swell which caused
Kenny to slip and fall overboard.

Kenny was under water. He opened his eyes and saw the
underneath of the boat moving rapidly away. Kenny realized
he was holding his breath and had to breathe. Kenny died.
He sank from sight unable to feel the water getting colder
and colder as he sank.

Kenny crawled over a rise in pretend plastic water and slid
down into a cavern filled with children. A girl a few years
older than he was walked up to him and took his hand.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Shelly and I drowned in 1952."

Kenny sniffled. "I'm Kenny. I'm six."

"What year is it? Is it still 2007?"

Kenny looked around. He was surrounded as far as he could
see by children. All, except Shelly, seemed to have vacant
expressions on their faces. They all appeared to be wandering
in slow motion. "What is that noise," Kenny asked.

"Over here," Shelly led Kenny via a round-about path
past the dazed looking children to the edge of the
cavern. "Babies," said Shelly. "These are all the babies
that have disobeyed their parents and drowned."

"Why are they all crying?"

"Wouldn't you?"

Kenny started to cry. "I'd didn't mean to. I just
wanted my toy. I really do what my parents tell me."

"You're lucky," Shelly said and let go of his hand.
"I speak English. If you walk that way too far," she
pointed along the length of the cavern. "You find children
that don't talk English."

Kenny was miserable. He wailed, "It was just a toy."

"What kind of toy, what did it look like?"

Kenny stopped crying and tried to think. "I can't remember."

"You see all these kids? Most of them went after a toy
and drowned. But none of them. Not a one can remember what
the toy was."

Kenny started to cry again. The hopelessness of his
situation was finally beginning to dawn on him.

Someone pushed Kenny and he tumbled to the ground.

"Hey!", he said.

A hand on his shoulder shook him. Kenny opened his eyes
and found himself in his bed on the boat. His mother sat over him.

"Hello, sleepy head."

Kenny sat up and grabbed his mother and wouldn't let go.
"Mom," he shouted. "I will do every thing you tell me.
Everything. I promise. I promise."

"You're such a good son," said his mother and hugged him
warmly back.

On deck, a not-too-gentle swell caused a blue plastic
toy fish to slip then fall overboard and sink.

Morgan Nelson lay on the gurney in the back of the
ambulance, his tummy on fire, his hands and feet numb,
and his head like a fuse-lit bomb. He thought back to
dinner and wondered why so many people would be poisoned.

The gang always met at Alphrado's after work Fridays for drinks,
conversation the free bar food. Morgan was the first to
arrive and heaped his plate with carrot sticks, celery
and cheese sticks. A dab of Ranch dressing rounded his plate
and he settled at an outside table to wait.

The waiter came around so Morgan ordered a cranberry and
vodka over ice. Jason and Ronda arrived the same time as
his drink.

"Did you see that biplane?" Ronda asked. "It seemed to
be buzzing the town." She set her purse on the table. "Watch
my purse while I grab some food."

"Grab me a plate too," yelled Jason as Ronda moved inside.

"Right," she called over her shoulder.

"Look," Morgan said. He pointed up across the trees in the
park. "It's that plane again."

The biplane was heading straight toward them. It almost looked
as if it was a crop duster. An almost invisible mist seemed
to be falling behind it.

"It's spraying!" Morgan said. "Look at that. A mist behind it."

Jason was busy waving to Ronda to tell her to get Buffalo
wings. "Buffalo wings!" he yelled.

"It's going to pass right over us," Morgan sounded worried.

"No, not cheese," Jason was becoming frustrated. "I'll
be right back."

Jason wove through tables to the inside to insure Ronda would
bring him the correct food.

The plane passed overhead and Morgan panicked. He covered his
mouth and nose with his sleeve and looked around. He spotted
a restroom just inside the door. He ignored Ronda's purse and
rushed into the restroom. Inside he bolted the door and quickly
soaked paper towels and covered his face with them.

The ambulance hit a bump in the road. Morgan's eyes focused.

"You're lucky," said the attendant leaning over him. "Sole survivor
of a terrorist attack. Not bad."

Morgan wondered what happened to Ronda's purse. He thought
maybe he should go back and save it for her. His vision defocused
again. Morgan lapsed into a coma and didn't awake for a week.

"Why did you tell him that?" the driver called over his shoulder.
"Why not tell him the truth. Someone dosed the paper towels
in the bathroom with drugs."

"Don't know," said the attendant in back with Morgan. "I just
thought it would be funny."

The vandose was invented by science to control population
growth. The theory proposed held that if mankind could
no longer go out at night, the human population would
begin to decline. It was hoped that after 200 years,
the population would drop to a sustainable one billion
worldwide.

The vandose stood five feet tall, with long fast legs,
huge sharp teeth, and an endless appetite. Their huge
eyes kept them in hiding by day, but made them dangerous
at night. They were created without sex organs so could
never reproduce. Instead they were created with a life-span
of 200 years.

Vandose lacked arms, so could not climb, but in the first
few years they proved too much for cats and birds. And,
as predicted, the human population began to fall.

Lastboy Fenton was ninety years old. His only sister had
died two years earlier, so he was left alone. Their parents
has walked out to be eaten by vandose fifty years before that.
All Lastboy could remember of his mother was her litany,
"Someday the sidewalks will once again bustle and jostle
with people."

Six months earlier, Lastboy's water-maker had broken. Since then,
he needed to boil water by burning wood each day. To do that,
he had been cannibalizing the inside of the house. The food
synthesizer still worked by a means he could no longer remember,
so he did not starve.

True to his mother's dictate, Lastboy had been counting the
days, months, and years. Last year had been the 200th year
and all the vandose should have died. Indeed, for the
last few months the nightly scratching on the outside of
the house had been absent. In fact, Lastboy may have heard
an owl hoot the other night.

Lately Lastboy had taken to sleeping with his window
nailed open a crack. A dangerous thing to do if vandose
were still around.

This morning, Lastboy looked at the vast scribbling that
covered the walls and traced with is eye to today. It
was January first of the 201st year.

Lastboy grunted as he pulled on too-tight shoes. He hadn't
worn shoes in years. With care, he hoisted his old frame
to his feet and walked slowly to the door.

"Maybe I should have champagne," Lastboy said. But
he just shook his head then opened the door. Beyond
the door was a short walkway, then the heavy steel barred
gate topped with barbed wire. Lastboy twisted the knob
and pulled the gate open. It wailed on rusty hinges and
stopped not-quite all the way open.

Lastboy stepped gingerly out onto the sidewalk. He looked
left and right. In both directions the sidewalk, and the street,
were all overgrown with weeds. In the distance he heard gulls
cry.

Lastboy turned and looked at his house. The address 75B.
He tried to remember the name of the street but could not.

Lastboy went back into the house and into his bedroom.
He sat on his bed and pulled off the too-tight shoes.
Lastboy leaned back and sighed.

"Someday the sidewalks will once again bustle and jostle
with people," remembered Lastboy. He laid back, his head
on the pillow.

Aggie Booth liked to gamble. Cards, horses, it did not
matter to him. Anything that involved a wager worked.
So Aggie was tickled to receive an invitation to a special
event for folks like him. The invitation was embossed in gold
on a stiff card and invited Aggie by name. Aggie smelled
the invitation and its odor reminded him of roses.

Aggie arrived outside the door precisely at the time
specified. He double checked his watch, a gold Rolex,
and saw that he had thirty seconds left in which to
open the door and enter.

The door was double doors made of mirrored glass with
modern looking handles sculpted in elongated silver. Aggie
touched a handle and felt a mild buzz in his hand. The
door clicked and swung smoothly and silently open.

Inside, it took a moment for Aggie's eyes to accustom themselves
to the interior darkness. He glanced back at the door and
noticed it was opaque and blocked all light. Aggie looked
around. The room was long and empty of furniture. The floor
was some sort of granite tile. At the far end of the room
were three doors.

Aggie walked calmly up to the three doors. They were identical.
Each was standard door size, but almost flush with the wall
and seemed to be made of some kind of metal.

Aggie called out, "How do I wager?" The room remained
silent. "Where do I place a bet?"

Aggie waited and slowly became bored. At last he reached
out to touch one of the doors. As he touched the door it
became transparent like glass and exposed to him a view
of the same hallway he just walked through. Aggie looked
around and discovered himself in a tiny room with the only
window the one he faced now.

Aggie felt an odd sensation wash over him. It felt almost
as if a part of him had died. Aggie shrugged the feeling off
to nerves.

Watching through the window Aggie saw himself walk through
the doors at the far end. He watched himself walk up to
the doors and ask how to place a bet.

Aggie beat on the window and yelled. "Don't touch any doors."
But the other Aggie on the outside ignored him.

The other Aggie reached and touched a different door than
the one Aggie was behind. The other Aggie disappeared.

A voice boomed above Aggie. "You lose," it said.

Aggie barely had time to consider what that meant before
he was violently killed. Naturally the other Aggie
felt an odd sensation wash over him. It felt almost
as if a part of him had died.

Danny and Donny were brothers who liked to play pretend war games
in the fields behind the hotel. Their mother worked the front desk
in the hotel, and let them play after school when the weather was nice.

This day was much nicer than most. The sun was warm and the air utterly
still. Not a single cloud was visible in the sky. For a moment, traffic
on the road was absent and the field where the boys played was silent.

A loud whistle and a louder thunk startled the boys. They dropped the
sticks they were using as pretend guns and stood to look around.
At the far end of the field, a bathtub had appeared.

"Do you see that Danny?" Donny asked.

"It's a bathtub," Danny said.

The boys ran up to it and looked inside. The bathtub was empty except
for a large stone, more like a boulder. The stone was egg shaped and
rocked gently back and forth.

"It's just a rock," Donny said.

"No. I think its an egg," countered Danny.

Danny reached in and tapped on the stone. The stone stopped rocking,
then cracked open and a snake-like thing shot out and bit Danny on the
hand.

Both boys jumped back.

"That stinks," Donny said and pinched his nose.

"It bit me," Danny said.

With a whoosh, the bathtub shot up into the air and climbed and climbed
until it was gone.

"Was that a space ship?" Donny asked.

Danny examined his hand but could find no sign of a bite. "Maybe," he said.

Their mother's voice called them to dinner.

The two boys rushed inside and bubbled over with stories about
the bathtub and the snake and the rock. Their mother, of course,
didn't believe them.

As time progressed, Danny became a straight A student. He learned
to play chess and write essays. He graduated the University with honors and
went on to win the Nobel Peace prize. Because of the thoughtful works
Danny produced in his life, armies were disbanded and the world began
to live in peace for the first time ever.

Donny became the desk person at the hotel and continued to care
for their aged mother until her death years later.

At the funeral, the two middle-aged brothers stood together for a rare moment.

Pam was not born like most folks, from a mother and father. Instead, she
was hatched from a pumpkin. This is why, it seemed to her, all her
early photos showed her playing among pumpkins.

On her twenty-first birthday, Pam was enjoying an outing with her friends.
They were exploring a corn maze when Pam became separated and lost
track of the others. She wasn't worried. The sunshine was bright and warm
and the corn maze quiet.

Pam rounded a corner and happened upon a scarecrow. It stood staked
to the ground dressed in a suit and tie. Pam looked at its painted
face and thought it very handsome. So she reached out and took its
stick hand.

The scarecrow transformed magically into a real man. "Hello," he said.
"My name is Jack."

Pam and Jack became best friends, then lovers and eventually married.
They lived, as Jack preferred, in the country rather than in the city.

One Halloween, Pam was out for a drive with Jack. She said, "Jack dear. Don't you
think it odd that we haven't had a baby yet?"

Jack pulled the car to the side of the road and turned off the engine.
"You never told me you wanted a child."

"But darling, I thought you knew. Didn't I give off the right signals?"

Jack frowned, then opened the door and got out. "Come with me," he said.

Pam joined him, and hand-in-hand they crossed the road to a pumpkin patch.

"Choose a pumpkin," said jack.

Pam pointed at one in the middle of the pile. "That one please."

Jack waded carefully to the center of the pumpkins. Bent and touched
the one Pam had chosen. "Remember," he said as he stood up straight.
"I have loved you always and will love you forever."

The pumpkin Pam had chosen cracked loudly and split open. A lovely
child crawled out. The child looked at Pam and said, "Mama."

Pam almost wanted to cry.

Pam's new daughter looked up at Jack and said, "Papa."

That word resonated through Jack and, in an instant, turned him
back into a scarecrow again. His painted face sad.

Pam took her new daughter home and never, ever told her she was hatched
from a pumpkin. Pam wanted her daughter to meet and love a real man.
She named her daughter Sally.

Pam kept the scarecrow in the living room nailed to the wall like art.
Whenever she was alone with it, she would kiss its painted face and
hold its stick hand. She wished, with all her might, she could one day
change that painted frown into a smile, but never could.

When Sally was eight, she walked up to her mother in the kitchen and
said, "Please don't tell me I'm in trouble."

"Why, what did you do?"

Sally took her mother's hand and lead her into the living room.
"I couldn't stand that face for another day," Sally said. "Please
don't tell me I'm in trouble."

Pam looked at the scarecrow on the wall and marveled at what she saw.
Sally had used paint to change the frown into a smile. It wasn't a perfect
job, the paint was smudged and a drip ran down his cheek.

"No," said Pam. She squeezed her daughter's hand.
"You're not in trouble. Not in trouble at all."

Hans Deilich had been an engineer with AMTRAK years before.
The train he'd been driving on the Sacramento to Oakland
run struck a car in an intersection and killed the woman
inside.

Hans retired from the railroad and swore to himself he
would never operate a train again. But one can seldom
resist one's true calling, and Hans was no exception.

In his sixties, Hans worked again driving a train, but this
time at the San Francisco Zoo. The small train couldn't move
all that fast and could stop on a dime. He lost his fear of
hitting someone, and over time, began to love his job again.

Hans arrived at work early to oil and tune the little engine.
He always did a test run before the Zoo opened so that he
could inspect the tracks.

Hans could not know that a peahen had nested on the track
over night.

The little train came round the corner and ahead Hans spotted
the peahen. He sounded his whistle and hit the breaks. The little
train screeched to a halt in a cloud of steam. Hans jumped out
and frantically looked for the peahen.

The bird had abandoned the nest and stood well off from the tracks
looking startled.

Hans dropped to his hands and knees and peered
under the train. He was relieved to see that there
were no eggs in the nest yet.

Hans stood and wiped his hands on his pants. He smiled.
Yes, Hans was once again working in a job he loved.

Laura Tafts found a nice hat in a flea market. It fit
her perfectly and was only a buck. Inside the brim was
a small strip of tape with the word "haunted" written
in a delicate script.

Laura knew that Halloween was the next day so thought little
of the label. Surely it must be just another Halloween gag.

Bad weather prevented Laura from wearing her new hat until the
following spring. She found it on a shelf in the hall
closet. She put it on and turned to look at herself in the
mirror. It looked lovely.

Another woman, wearing a white hat, approached Laura from her right.
Laura glimpsed the woman out of the corner of her eye, moving as if to collide.
Laura gasped, surprised that there might be someone in her
empty house. She looked. There was nobody there. She was
alone in her own house and her hallway was quiet except for
the ticking of the clock. Laura decided she'd had too much
to drink the night before.

Laura took off the hat and noticed once again the label
inside with the word "haunted." She shrugged and said to
herself, "A hat cannot be haunted."

To walk to the shopping district, Laura had to cross
a traffic circle where five roads intersected. She stood
at the pedestrian crossing and waited for the light to
change to a green hand.

Laura mused about the sale that morning and wondered if
the skirt she liked would still be on the rack and if
it would be marked down. The pedestrian signal changed
and Laura began to step off the curb.

A woman wearing a white had approached Laura from her
right. Laura just caught her out of the corner of her
eye and stepped back to avoid colliding.

Laura looked and there was nobody there. Just then
a large truck roared through the pedestrian crossing
barely missing Laura, the driver chatting on a cellphone.

Laura took off the hat and waited for her heart to settle.
After a while she calmed and began to wonder. "Does the label
cause the haunting or does it merely notify the owner that
the hat is haunted."

An older woman walking two lovely large dogs walked up beside
Laura. "Good morning," she said.

"Good morning," Laura said, and had a thought. "Would you
like a hat?"

"It's a very pretty hat, are you sure you want to give it
away?"

"I'm positive," Laura said. She handed the hat to the old
woman. They crossed together. Laura found out the woman's
name was Bess. "Goodbye Bess," Laura called when they parted
ways.

Bess wore the hat that afternoon for a walk in the park.
As she approached a tunnel in the park,
Bess thought she saw a woman
in a white hat approaching from her right. She saw the woman
in the corner of her eye and stopped to avoid a collision.

Bess's dogs started to bark. Bess looked and there was nobody
on the path with her. The dogs barked viscously at nothing.
It almost seemed to Bess that the dogs were barking at the
woman in the hat who wasn't there.

The barking of the dogs frightened two young men that
had been hiding in the bushes. They had planned to rob the
old woman and never expected such gentle looking dogs to
bark like that. They abandoned their plan and fled back into
the park.

Bess brought the dogs under control. She removed the hat and
wiped the sweat from her forehead. She was about to put
the hat back on when she notice a label inside. It was a slip
of tape with the word "haunted," on it.

"Bunk," Bess said.

She peeled off the piece of tape and dropped it into
a nearby trash can.

The tape fell and landed on an empty plastic
water bottle. It wiggled as if it was alive and
stuck to the bottle.

Sunlight illuminated the inside of the trash can causing
the water bottle to sparkle. The piece of tape
on the water bottle waited patiently
in the warmth to be found.
add a comment or report a mistake

Some say that when evil magic runs its course, beneficial
magic remains.

Wona Huevo worked days in a small back-room downtown.
She spent her days sewing "Made in U.S.A" labels on
imported garments. She always looked forward to
her trip home to see her son. She and her son lived
with her mother in a cheap apartment building a train-ride
from town.

Wona's son, Don, was an adult but with the mind of a
child. He always was so happy when his mother came home
he could do nothing more than make his mother just as happy.

On her way home that Friday afternoon, Wona found a clean
gray sock on the ground. She looked up and, high up among
the converted condos was a clothes line. "It must have
fallen," she said.

Wona caught the evening train home and idled her time
on the ride sewing buttons to the sock to make her son a
sock puppet.

Dr. Ranji pulled his laundry in through the window.
He was dismayed to discover one of his gray socks missing.
"Damn kids," he growled and glared at the single remaining
sock.

Dr. Ranji was a magician of the old school. Not only
did he own a condo on the top floor, but he also leased
a work-room in the basement. It was in this work-room
that Dr. Ranji performed his magic.

Dr. Ranji tossed the sock in a bowl then rubbed his chin
thoughtfully. "Hmm." He grabbed various ingredients from
shelves that lined the walls of his work-room. "Hmm."

Wona arrived home as usual shortly before her son's bedtime.
Don smiled as she entered the room. Wona hugged her son then
sat on the bed next to him.

"Look what I made for you," Wona said. She pulled the sock
puppet onto her hand.

Dr. Ranji snapped his fingers. From a box under the
table he pulled a dead snake. Mumbling the appropriate
words, he tossed the snake into the bowl with the sock.

Don watched his mother put the sock on her hand. Then the
strangest thing happened. His mother's hand turned into
a big snake. It hissed and bared its fangs. Its eyes
were huge and glowed red. Don wailed in fear.

"What's wrong," Wona said. "Don't you like the sock
puppet?"

But her son only wailed louder and tried to back away
in fear.

Wona pulled the sock from her hand and threw it on the
floor. "There, its gone."

Don's eyes cleared and he scooted forward. He took his
mother's hand and began to kiss it.

Wona picked up the sock and looked at it. It just
looked like a sock to her. She carried it out onto
the back balcony that overlooked the train tracks.
With a throw that would make a professional baseball
player envious, Wona threw the sock as far away as
she could.

Dr. Ranji snapped his fingers again. He pulled a set
of dead bat's wings from a jar and tossed them into the
bowl.

Over the train tracks, the sock sprouted wings and flapped
its way back to the city.

Dr. Ranji needed something else. He scratched his head.

The sock landed on the clothes line outside Dr. Ranji's
condo.

Dr. Ranji, his hands behind his back, began to pace, circling
the table. High above, the sock too began to circle the clothes
line. Then Dr. Ranji said, "Fire!"

Dr. Ranji mixed two powders and tossed the result into
the bowl. A flash of fire and smoke rose from the bowl.

High above, the sock coughed fire. Like a small dragon it
set fire to the clothes line. Then it coughed harder and burst
into flames itself. The fire burned its way up the rope and
into Dr. Ranji's condo.

Dr. Ranji heard the fire alarm and, following standard fire
rules, joined the other residents on the sidewalk outside.
He looked up and was amazed to see that only one condo
was on fire. It was his own.

In the basement the bowl with the snake and bat's wings also
burst into flames. In short order the entire basement was on
fire.

Saturday was uneventful. Dr. Ranji stayed with his sister
in her place near the park.

On Sunday afternoon Dr. Ranji was arrested for arson.

Monday morning Wona had to bring her son with her to work.
She did that every Monday because her mother had therapy that day.
Wona lead her son past a condo building that was closed
and covered in yellow "Caution" tape.

On the ground, Wona found two buttons. She picked them up
and thought they looked an awful lot like the buttons she
had used to make the sock puppet.

Don said, "Can I?"

Wona gave the buttons to her son. He smiled and put them
in his own pocket.

The buttons were the cinder of a burned dragon. Don carried
with him the spent magic of evil, and evil so great that
its remains became strongly beneficial. Over the next
year, Don healed in ways that would, at first, amaze only his
mother, and only later, would amaze and then also heal the world.